


und der mensch heißt mensch, weil er vergisst, weil er verdrängt

by Itisjustmyself



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Youtube RPF
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Peter Pan AU, Phandom Big Bang, a huge amount of quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-17 18:56:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2319902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itisjustmyself/pseuds/Itisjustmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dan comes across Phil’s videos for the first time, it’s only pure coincidence. It’s a bit of an accident when he clicks on one of Phil’s videos, but he can’t help but be fascinated by the boy with the floppy hair and the blue eyes, and he spends a whole weekend cooped up in his room watching every single video he can find online.</p><p>It’s a weekend full of laughter tears and he loves it, so goddamn much. It’s something that takes him away from his oh-so-boring life, away from the uni stress and the worries about how he’s not going to measure up to his mother’s and father’s hopes. It’s a weekend where he doesn’t feel lonely and he doesn’t think or feel as if his life is deemed to end in death anyways. He just sits there, listening to the other boy’s life stories and adventures and it feels nice, as if he was a child again and his mom was telling him bedtime stories.</p><p>For once he feels happy, or at least, that’s what he thinks happy is supposed to feel like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	und der mensch heißt mensch, weil er vergisst, weil er verdrängt

**Author's Note:**

> So. It is done. Here you have my entry for the Phandom Big Bang. I'm really happy I managed to finish this, since I always struggle with getting fics done. I had a bunch of fun writing this and I hope you have too while reading it. 
> 
> Oh, and also of course I'd like to thank my beta [thenamelessbird](thenamelessbird.tumblr.com) for helping out with all of this. Without you this probably wouldn't even classify as english. And of course [creativitydied](creativitydied.tumblr.com) for her wonderful and gorgeous art that you can find included in the fic, as well as [here](http://creativitydied.tumblr.com/post/99504006594/dan-dreaming) and [here](http://creativitydied.tumblr.com/post/99504137974/allchildren-exceptone-growup). Although I recommend to not look at the art before you read the fic, since it contains spoilers.
> 
> I claim no ownership over Dan and Phil or anything in this fic that sounds familiar. Title is from 'Mensch' by Herbert Grönemeyer.

_Life is a funny little thing. And if you take your time to think about it, there’s a lot about your existence that is already set in stone. You’re born, you live, you die. And that's something that happens to everybody. There’s nothing you can do to change that. Nothing at all. But you do have the chance to decide what to do with your time on this earth. And that’s something, that plays out differently for each person._

_The story I am going to tell you, is that of a little boy that liked to watch the skies at night._

_And if you’ve ever watched the skies at night, you know, there could have not been a lovelier sight, but often there was none to see it except the little boy who was staring out the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred._

 

** Tuesday, 11th June 1991 **

The sun had just gone down when Mrs. Howell was finally redeemed from her labor pains.

It was a Tuesday and she could hear the cars driving by outside the hospital, the sound not being diminished by her own screams anymore. She had been in labor for a long time, the past hours all mashed together in a chaos of pain and blood and waiting.

Her husband stepped up beside her hospital bed, a tiny bundle in his arms. She pulled the little baby boy closer, placing him down on her chest and looked at him, his big dark eyes looking back at her. She smiled a tired smile and in that very moment she knew that every second of pain had been worth it.

** Monday, 27th  March 1995 **

Mrs. Howell pulled the blanket over her son smiling at him and pushing his feet over slightly, so she could sit down beside them. Every night she would bring her son to bed and sit down with him to tell him a story before he fell asleep.

She had a rather great imagination and would spin stories about wonderful universes, magical characters and great adventures. Sometimes she would tell him the usual children stories, the  fairy tales, while other times she would come up with new adventures for those famous characters. And on certain nights she would even come up with something completely new. And it hadn’t taken her that long to figure out that there was one story her little boy loved the most. The stories about that one boy that didn’t want to grow up, his adventures where he fought pirates, rescued children and spent huge amounts of time looking for his shadow, were what fascinated Dan the most.

Mrs. Howell told him, how the boy would fly around the skies and come in through open windows to take children away to Neverland, a place where nobody ever had to grow up.

What she didn’t know was, that the second she left the room her little boy would get out of bed again and sink down in front of the window to gaze up towards the many, many stars. He would look up at those blinking things in the dark sky and wish for the boy to come and take him away, not because he didn’t like where he was, but because he wanted nothing more than to live all those adventures. He pulled the window open a little bit and then slipped back beneath his blanket before falling asleep. And of course, his dreams were filled with flying boys, fighting pirates and he was living the greatest adventures ever.  


** Sunday, 5th April 2009 **

When Dan comes across Phil’s videos for the first time, it’s only pure coincidence. Sure, he’d already spend quite some time on YouTube, watching videos of animals and games and who knows what, but never video bloggers. It’s a bit of an accident when he clicks on one of Phil’s videos, but he can’t help but be fascinated by the boy with the floppy hair and the blue eyes, and he spends a whole weekend cooped up in his room watching every single video of the boy he can find online.

It’s a weekend full of laughter tears and he loves it, so goddamn much. It’s something that takes him away from his oh-so-boring life, away from the uni stress and the worries about how he’s not going to measure up to his mother’s and father’s hopes. It’s a weekend where he doesn’t feel lonely and he doesn’t think or feel as if his life is deemed to end in death anyways. He just sits there, listening to the other boy’s life stories and adventures and it feels nice, as if he was a child again and his mom was telling him bedtime stories.

For once he feels happy, or at least, that’s what he thinks happy is supposed to feel like.

** Monday, 10th August 2009 **

The thing with Dan has always been that he thinks, and thinks and thinks, too damn much. Maybe that doesn’t even sound like a problem to some people, but it is. It really is.

It’s because most of the time he’s so busy with thinking he gets almost no chances to act. And sometimes there are these moments where he wishes he’d thought less and acted more, because maybe if he did, he would have kissed Phil a long time ago and maybe, even if the chance was a million times more than the stars in the skies and bigger than anything he can imagine, Phil would have kissed him back.

But reality doesn’t change because people want it to, a wish is nothing but a wish when the harsh light of the morning breaks through the clouds and so Dan doesn’t think less and hasn’t kissed Phil yet. Instead he sits on the ground in his room, staring up at the clouds above him as the sun comes up. His mind is busy with a million and more reasons why his stupid, stupid crush is exactly that: stupid. Also it’s why he should have long ago given up the hopes of it ever becoming more, but somehow, no matter how pessimistic he normally is, he can’t let go of the sliver of hope that he has. Even though it is a far away and unrealistic dream, it’s one of the few things in life that can even make him smile anymore. Now that he thinks about it, every single reason for him to smile comes back to Phil, and yes, Dan knows he is in way too deep, gone head over heels for the dark haired boy, but there’s nothing he can do about his feelings. And honestly, even if he could, he probably wouldn’t.  

It’s sorrowful to think how dependent he is on a person he has never even met, how all his dreams and hopes have begun to relate to the black-haired and blue-eyed face on the screen. Dan knows that there is a person behind the videos and skype calls and millions of emails, but still it feels strange, like Phil is something that is trapped somewhere in between imagination and reality, maybe just a figment of his brain, slowly coming to life as he slowly goes insane.

** Friday, 16th October 2009 **

The YouTube page has been sitting open on his screen for more than an hour now. He has uploaded the video, written a description and all that, all that is left to do is to press the publish button. But that seems to be a task that is far too difficult for him to accomplish. He’s nervous. What if he doesn’t get any views at all? What if people hate him? What if he’s shit at this? What if Phil was wrong and he should never ever show his face in front of a camera? What if he’s just too boring? Because let’s face it, what interesting things could he even talk about? What if?  

There are a million and one questions like that flying through his mind and he knows he won’t get an answer to a single one of them unless he posts the video. He can feel his fingers shaking, can hear the soft sound it makes when they brush against the keyboard. The house is quiet, he’s all alone and he’s just really scared, scared to the bone by the simple task of pressing a button, of a simple mouse click. Really, how much of a failure can he even be, when something like that is too much, too difficult, too daunting for him.

**Phil - 14:47**  
 **You’re going to upload today, right? When? I’m so excited for it.**

The message pops up on the screen of his phone, just when he’s about the press the little x on the top of the YouTube page, just when he had had decided not to upload his poor attempt of a video. 

**Dan - 14:48**  
 **I don’t know whether I’ll upload it. It’s probably shit and won’t get any views.**

**Phil - 14:48**  
 **Please upload it, I’m sure it’s good. And even if it’s not, all of us started out way worse than we are now.**

**Dan - 14:49**  
 **But…. I’m scared, Phil. What if people hate it?**

**Phil - 14.50**  
 **The important thing is, whether you like it or not.**

**It’s not like Dan didn’t know that the most important thing about this all was that he liked his content and had fun making it, but still, he was scared and unsure and panicking.**

**Dan - 14.50**  
 **I do. But still… I just.**

**Phil - 14:51**  
 **No buts, you don’t want to turn into a star, don’t you?**

Dan can feel himself frown as he looks down at the message. What on earth was Phil on about now? Sure he loved the other boy and all his quirks, as random and strange as he sometimes was, but it did get confusing every now and then. He often said or did things Dan just couldn’t understand and so he spends a lot of time asking Phil to explain.

**Dan - 14:52**  
 **Explanation please?**

**Phil - 14:53**  
 **Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on everything else for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.**

He smiles down onto the small screen. He isn’t all too sure he knows what Phil even means to tell him, but whatever it was, it had been enough. He turns back to his computer and pressed the upload button. He sighs deeply. It was done now, no going back.

** Monday, 19th October 2009 **

Dan was sure he had fallen in love in the second he had caught sight of the tall boy on that train station and the whole time they spend together, he couldn’t stop staring. He just wasn’t so sure if Phil had fallen for him too. Most of the time he could feel his hands shaking and his heart fluttering nervously in his chest. On the one hand, he couldn’t wait to finally meet the person that everything in Dan’s life seemed to revolve around, while on the other hand he was shy and scared. What if he wasn’t what Phil expected? What if they didn’t get along as good as they did online? What if Phil was just setting him up for a joke? What if this all had been a horrible mistake?

“Dan!” Phil smiled widely, storming up to him in just the moment when Dan had really considered turning around and getting back onto that train. “I can’t believe this is happening! I’m so excited to finally meet you!” The dark haired male exclaimed, throwing his arms around Dan in a bone crushing embrace.

For a second Dan felt like every single bone in his body had gone stiff as he froze in shock. He had never been much of a touchy kind of person, not even with his mom, but as the warmth of Phil’s body sickered into his own, he slowly relaxed. This was Phil, the person he had told almost every single secret to, so why on earth shouldn’t he enjoy an embrace by him? He was crushing on Phil even, body contact was totally normal and right. They basically were friends in every single definition, expect for the part, of course, where they had never even been in the same city before or even met outside the guise of the seemingly endless boundary of the internet. But still, he had never shared a bound as close and all-encompassing with any other person. He probably knew Phil better than he knew himself, so this was all completely normal.

“It’s a strange thing to say that I’m only now grasping that you’re actually real, isn’t it?” Phil grins at him as soon as he has pulled back from the hug. Now, it should be really easy to answer this, they’ve talked so much, but of course he can feel the worry spreading in his mind like a wildfire after a drought. What if it’s different now that they’re actually in the same room?

“No… I… Yeah, I get what you mean.” He stutters out.

“Don’t worry, I’m nervous too.” Phil mutters, while tangling their fingers together. “I get it. It’s all scary, but why shouldn’t we get along as great in real life as we do online?”

He can feel the warmth of the other males fingers rush into his bloodstream and spread along his arm. His heartbeat calms and he nods softly. It’s all going to be good.

In fact, it’s better than good, because a few hours later he finds himself on top of the Manchester eye and Phil is still holding his hand. While they spend almost the whole day talking, they’ve grown silent in the past few minutes. And Dan knows that the view right now is gorgeous, the city of Manchester with all its twinkling lights, but really his attention is completely captured by the dark-haired male next to him. He can’t really believe that Phil is actually the same in person, they get along just as well as they do online. Dan never really had close friends, and sure there were people in school he spend time with and talked to a bit, but never really told them what he thinks and feels. Somehow he has this strong feeling that Phil is going to be that kind of person to him for a long time.

He is so lost in his thoughts that it takes him quite some time to realize that Phil is looking back at him.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Just. We’re going to have to say goodbye again so soon.” He mutters back, looking down shyly. Phil is gonna think he’s insane and clingy and stupid and-

"Never say goodbye, Dan.” Phil tells him, forcing his chin upwards and looking him straight into the eyes. “Because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting. We’re going to say see you later.”

And then, he can’t recall how it happened or who made the first move, but suddenly they’re kissing. Phil’s lips are soft and warm, and his hands are caressing his face and Dan just feels extremely happy as he tangles his fingers in Phil’s hair.

To this day, Dan doesn’t know how to describe that moment, words don’t seem to do it justice at all. But, of course how else could it be, Phil did have the words for it. Dan remembers the wide smile on his face when they pulled apart and he can still hear the words he whispered.

“You know what kissing you feels like? Like colors and fire and happiness. Like, you know, if you shut your eyes and you are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colors suspended in the darkness and if you then squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colors becomes so vivid, that if you were to squeeze once more they must go on fire.”

If he’s honest, he isn’t even too sure he knows what the other boy was trying to tell him. But the words were beautiful and Phil was too and Dan holds them close to his heart because they mean so much to him.

** Tuesday, 20th October 2009 **

They’re sitting on the ground next to Phil’s bed and filming their first video together. The room smells like Phil and like the sharpie they used to paint whiskers on their noses. He can feel Phil’s fingers tangled with his own and their knees bumping whenever one of them moves. He is breathless from laughing and his cheeks are flushed and this is nice, just really nice.

They answer the stupid questions Phil’s followers have sent in. They laugh and they kiss so much and Dan knows this is going to be a bitch to edit out for Phil later, but he doesn’t care. He kisses him anyway. Just because he can. Also, because the feeling he gets in his stomach and chest, the fluttering and tingling, the razing of his heart and pulsing of his blood, it’s still so new and amazing and he isn’t really sure, he’ll ever get used to it.

They get hours of footage that day, most of it probably useless for a public video, but Dan can’t think of another day where he was as happy as he is in those moments.

“I never want this to end.” He whispers to Phil after they have turned off the camera. They’re still sitting on the floor and there’s still the black color all over Phil’s cheeks and Dan is just so happy.

“Never is an awfully long time.”

It was only years later that Dan finally understood Phil’s words.

** Saturday, 13th February 2010 **

India is hot and humid and while it’s a wonderful country and a great holiday, Dan can’t really enjoy it as much as he likes. It’s his first Valentine’s Day, where he actually has someone to spend it with and now he’s thousands of kilometers away from Phil. It sucks a whole goddamn lot.

And really, he hadn’t expected Phil to make him a video, because they had agreed that they wouldn’t do something, so he’s more than surprised when he gets the message to check lessamazingphil for a private video.

“Awrf. Hi Dan. Happy Valentine’s Day.” Phil’s voice sounds from the speakers of his laptop. The older male is just sitting in front of the camera, and Dan feels like he’s looking straight at him. He can feel a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, because this is just so cute. Phil actually went through the effort of filming a video and uploading it and god.

“I have made this video, because I love you, and I’ve never had Valentine’s Day with anyone before. So, this is me saying, ‘I love you’.” Dan bites down on his lower lip and smiles.

“I love you too.” He tells the laptop and he knows Phil can’t hear him, but just… he just loves that boy.

And Phil proceeds to talk and with every word the memories flash in front of Dan’s eyes. The first time they met, the kiss, the snow day, their week alone, movie nights, the Halloween gathering and so much more. And he can’t help but smile and cry the whole time, because this wonderful, lovely, genuine, perfect boy loves him.

** Wednesday, 10th August 2011 **

He’s moving out of the university dorm and into a flat with Phil. And he still can’t believe it. Yes, sure they’ve been dating for a while and they’ve known each other even longer, but still, he never was sure if Phil wasn’t getting annoyed by him and now this step is huge.

They’ll be around each other every single second of the day, well almost, but still. He won’t just see Phil every now and then, no, every morning when he wakes up the dark-haired male will be always be there.

The day is busy, he carries a million boxes up the stairs while the moving people set up the furniture. Both of their moms are busy in the kitchen, setting the whole thing up and putting stuff away and really he doesn’t even know what to do with half the stuff Dan’s mum made him buy, but what does it matter.

“Our own little paradise.” Phil sighs as he flops down on the couch after the moving people have gone. They’re still surrounded by boxes, quite a lot of them actually, but unpacking can wait a bit. Dan sits down next to Phil and pulls his legs up onto the sofa.

“Yes.” He replies quietly. “We have our own place.”

“Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning that’s right where our flat is.” Phil smiles and closes his eyes. Dan gets up and pulls a blanket out of one of the boxes before cuddling up to Phil. Time for a nap.

  **Tuesday, 15th November 2011**

“Dan?” Phil’s voice comes from the threshold of his room, making Dan roll over to look at him. “Please come into the kitchen, I made pancakes and you haven’t eaten in days.”

“I don’t know… I just… I am such a failure in life and I can’t do this and…” The words were just tumbling out his mouth, much like the chaos in his brain.

“Please, eat something.” Phil repeated as he came closer and sat down on the bed next to the brunette.

“Phil… you don’t get it. It’s not just that easy.” Dan mumbled.

“Dan…” Phil trailed off quietly. “I’ll bring you something in. Promise me you’ll try to eat it at least.” The bed shifted a bit as Phil got up and Dan listened to his steps as he left the room. It wasn’t much later that the smell of pancakes reached his nostrils as the dark haired male placed a plate on his bed.

“Why do you force the whole thing with uni on yourself? You’re obviously not happy.”

“What else am I supposed to do then?”

“YouTube? You’re really successful at it. You could live off it. Just invest all effort into it and you’ll do fine.”

“Phil… I can’t do that. It’s not a career.” How did Phil expect him to do that? He needed something to fall back on, some kind of certificate and law school was going to offer him exactly that. A safe and accepted job option, something that his parents would like and that could guarantee him a nice life.

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” Was Phil’s only answer before he got up and left the room.

Dan spends a large part of the night lying awake in his bed, tossing and turning as he considered Phil’s words. Sure, he’d probably enjoy YouTube a lot more than school, but it just wasn’t really safe was it? He had acquired quite some subscribers and yes, he had really liked the time without school where he could concentrate on video making and had all the time to himself, but still what would he do if he wasn’t twenty something anymore. What about in a few years? Law was the safer option, right?

The next morning, when he was supposed to show up at the university to take his exam, he didn’t.

  **Sunday, 13th January 2013**

Dan can feel his fingers and knees shaking as he steps up to the microphone. He’s excited and nervous and terrified and happy at the same time. The production guy nods and calls out that they’re going live in 5 minutes. They’re going live. With their first weekly radio show. It’s insane and seems so unreal that this is happening.

“That’s it.” Phil smiles brightly at him as he tangles their fingers. And Dan still can’t believe, even after all these years, that this smile is directed at him, this wonderful smile that seems brighter than the sun. “I love you.” Phil barely breathes out the words but Dan can feel them vibrating in his bones, pulsing through his blood and he loves how, even after so much time, he still has this kind of reaction to his boyfriend.

“I love you too.” He mouths and then quickly starts sorting through their equipment and checking everything again, and yes, he already did that three times in the past half hour, but he just can’t bring himself to look at Phil whenever he says those words. He’s still way too afraid that one day he’ll see disgust  in Phil’s eyes and he’s just very sure, that that day will be the day he chooses to cease to exist.

“It seems dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough.” Phil says to him later that night, when they’re sitting in the back of a Starbucks, still hyped up from the show. “You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”

For a second Dan considers telling him, that his biggest dream, the one he’d sacrifice everything for, is sitting next to him with a caramel macchiato in his hand. He doesn’t though.

  **Monday, 10th February 2014**

Phil had just turned 27 when the doctors found a carcinoma on his pancreas. Dan was with him when he got the phone call. Phil didn’t cry. There was no false hope in his eyes. He knew exactly what was going to happen. His grandfather had died of the same form of cancer, he knew the odds, knew that he probably wouldn’t live to see more than another year of life.

Dan did cry. He felt helpless and useless and was scared, so so scared. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t what they had planned. Because yes, maybe Phil would get his biggest wish granted, he’d never have to grow old. The price for it though was very high. The universe was sick and cruel, something Dan had always known and now he had gotten his proof, because how was it okay for Phil to die so young when there were so many people that deserved to die and lived for decades.

Phil smiled down at him softly and wiped the tears from the younger boy’s face. He didn’t seem scared or shaken at all, something Dan couldn’t understand at all, how could Phil just accept his faith like this? How could he not be angry about all those stolen days that never came to be? How could he not hate the universe and fate and god and whoever was responsible for tearing him out of life so soon, so unprepared and so harshly?

“To die would be an awfully big adventure, don’t you think?”

  **Tuesday, 21st November 2014**

It was a warm autumn night when Phil died, wrapped in Dan’s arms. The older male was bundled up in a thick blanket, he’d been freezing all the time recently although it was still quite warm considering the time of year. Tears were dripping down Dan’s cheeks again, an unstoppable salty force, and Phil smiled up at him.

“Don’t cry.” He whispered, voice quiet and hoarse, there was no way of not noticing the illness in him anymore. His hair was thinner, skin even paler and bones more prominent, but his eyes still shone the same way, still sparkled like the day they had met.

“But, you’ll be leaving me. I’ll never see you again, how could I not cry?” Dan muttered. He felt like shit, Phil hadn’t once cried through this at all. And he should be the one supporting and comforting Phil, not the other way around, but he just could not help it. He was sad and angry and frustrated and just didn’t understand the universe. This man, or maybe he really always had been more of a boy, who gave him so much, who saved him from himself, he was going to die, was going to leave this world and never return and it just wasn’t fair.

“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” Phil mumbled. His words were mashing together as he smiled softly at the younger male, eyes crinkling at the corners in that wonderful way that Dan loved so much.

And then he died and it wasn’t a huge bang, a supernova exploding around them like Dan had expected. It was quiet and soft and a single tear dripping out of the corner of Phil’s eye as he took his last breath.

It was the last and the first one at the same time.

 

All children, except one, grow up.

Phil Lester  
1987 - 2014

 Rest in Peace.

 

 

_And maybe, after all this wasn’t just the story of the little boy, but the story of how the little boy met another and they were extremely happy for the short time that they were granted. But do not cry about his death, for maybe, in another universe, said boy is still sitting at the window and watching the night skies in search of something he has yet to find. And maybe, in that universe, the boy will find his love again and they’ll die together and old and happy. Or maybe they will never find each other. There are a thousand stars, a thousand universes, a thousand possibilities and every time the little boy loves the other boy._

_So just remember, all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again._


End file.
